Is it possible not to send customer an email when creating Draft orders?

[JackTr]

We do a lot of wholesale orders and I'd like to know how can we create draft orders without sending an email to our customers.
Thank you!

[Olivia]

Hey, @JackTr!

Olivia here from the Shopify team.

Thanks for sharing your question. It's definitely possible to skip the `email invoice` part of a draft order. Follow the steps to create a draft order:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders

2. Click Create order.

3. Add products to the order.

4. Customize the order:

   • Add a customer.
   • Apply discounts.
   • Turn taxes on or off.
   • Add tags or a note.

5. Do one of the following actions:

   • Email an invoice to the customer. By default, the invoice contains a link to a checkout that your customer can use to pay for the order.
   • Accept payment from the customer.
   • Save the order as a draft so that you can update it later from the Drafts page.

In your case, save the draft order to be updated later as such:

That should do the trick, but let me know if there's another reason this workflow doesn't meet your needs.

I look forward to connecting.

Warm regards,

[JackTr]

Thank you for your response Olivia!

This was really accurate based on my request, but I did forget to mention something.
The problem actually occurs when we Mark as Paid. These orders are either gift, influencers, investor packages or wholesale deals we're trying to close and do not require payment. But we do want to track that for both Productions (one source of truth for our operations) and track how many of these we sent to control cashflow (with tags).

So ideally we would want to have customers' info in there, (for delivery, shipping etc.) but not them to know that this is actually happening in the background.

Thank you!

[Olivia]

Ah, okay. Thanks for the clarification, @JackTr.

When you mark an order as paid it's treated very much as though an order was transacted through your online store. As part of that process, an order confirmation email must be sent and cannot be disabled at this time.

In your case, merchants typically create a draft order and add a 100% discount.

• This can be strategic, as it shares the real world value of the order.
• It's also a good experience for customers to receive the emails if you are adding things like a tracking number, for them to track their packages.

On the other hand, I can definitely appreciate why you might need to bypass this. A hack would be to not enter a customer email address with their profile, but I can also see why you would want that information easily accessible and accurate.

I'd like to hear more about what you think and see if we can come up with another solution. I also invite other community members with the same needs to share their thoughts on how they are managing this.

Warm regards,

[JackTr]

Olivia, thank you for your response once again.

The best alternative I’ve found so far was not to add the customer info prior to marking it as paid and only add it afterwards.
Since we’re able not to notify customers when label is created etc.. it’s a much smoother experience.

That said, adding just a checkmark allowing us not to notify customer when an order is created would be very practical for our business and I’m assuming many others.

Thank you for your help!

[Olivia]

Thanks for your reply, @JackTr.

That's a clever workaround! Your feedback is definitely relevant, and I'd be happy to pass your comments along to our Product Development team for consideration. 

Thanks again,

[KR3]

Olivia

I have the exact same problem in my business. I work with a lot of schools and departments who require a very convoluted process of purchase orders and delivery prior to payment. I have been generating invoices in MYOB for the quotes and loading a draft order. I sent a Tax Invoice (generated in MYOB from the quote) for payment with the order and also via email.

However, when the order is (finally) paid and I want to mark the payment into Shopify it sends the client another Tax Invoice (which has different invoice number) and I then have to email and tell them to ignore that invoice. It's very cumbersome and very unprofessional.

I have tried creating a Draft Invoice when the Purchase Order comes in and I select 'Mark as Pending'. This option at least gives me the correct Invoice number but again, when the payment is finally received and I select 'Mark a Paid' another invoice is sent...

Being able to control invoice emails for draft orders would be super-helpful for those of us operating under slightly different business structures.

I'd love your thoughts.

[Olivia]

Hi, @KR3!

Thank you so much for connecting with us and joining this thread.

I'd be happy to chat more with you, but I'd like to make sure I haven't missed or misunderstood anything from your post. To clarify:

• When you refer to an additional invoice being sent, is that a receipt in this case?
• It sounds as though you are using a service called MYOB - is this a particular app, if so which one?
• Are your clients paying through the invoice links you generate, or are you always manually marking as paid?
• You have also described sending automatic emails within the order, and manually emailing - is that correct?

Any further context you can provide would also be greatly appreciated. 

I look forward to your reply,

[KR3]

Hi Olivia,

With regards to your questions:

• yes, the 'additional invoice' is the receipt of payment generated automatically from Shopify when I click 'Make A Payment' and choose 'other'.  There is also one sent if I choose 'Mark As Pending' . I am trying to avoid both of these.
• MYOB is our accounting software (very standard in Australia). It is not an app. It runs completely independently of Shopify (so a lot of double-handling is happening to reload customer details etc) just to create an quote then invoice with purchase order number.
• any clients that require quote ==> purchase order ==> delivery ==> invoice need a unique order process. For these clients, I am always marking the order payment manually as 'paid'. They are generally paying with a bank transfer.  
• I haven't been able to work out how to generate a smooth process of quoting directly from Shopify so have been generating quotes separately from MYOB. After I receive a purchase order, I create an actual Tax Invoice in MYOB, which includes the purchase order number, and then print a physical copy to post with the order. I also email it direct from MYOB to the client for payment (they can just click the pay now button, or do a bank transfer). Quite often the accounts person is different to the person listed on the account in Shopify so if I send the invoice via the Shopify account it doesn't reach the correct person for payment.  The Shopify customer needs to be the client (not finance department) as once the order is paid they receive access to our online program content via a series of automations. 

For the majority of clients, the current draft order system is absolutely fine, but for clients needing to use Purchase Orders Ideally what I need is:

• to be able to create a draft order in Shopify (not duplicated in MYOB)
• to then send a quote to the client (a PDF of the draft order that says 'Quote' that I can email would be perfect)
• when a Purchase Order is received, I could mark the Shopify order as 'Payment Pending' (but NOT email auto the client) and post items. 
• I would then want to download/export a Tax Invoice (PDF for emailing) which includes a Purchase Order number so send with the posted items. 
• finally, after payment is made to our account (independent of Shopify) I need to be able to mark the draft order as Paid but it NOT send a receipt to the client (they already have one in PDF form). It's the action of order 'Paid' in Shopify that triggers a whole series of essential automations in our business so I do need the order to officially be 'Paid'. 

I hoe this detail helps.

The auto-generating of receipts and order notification for these draft orders is definitely problematic. 

Any solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Kate

[Olivia]

Thank you so much for providing that additional context, @KR3.

I’ve come up with a set of steps that should act as a workaround for you, which will allow you to create a payment pending draft order, send a quote, and mark the order as paid without sending automatic communications to the customer. Check out the steps below:



1. Go to Orders > Drafts > and click Create order.
2. Add a customer to the order, and choose the option to create a new customer. When adding this customer, include their name and address, but DO NOT add an email address. This is how we will prevent the automatic emails from sending out.
3. Add the desired product(s) to the order, and tax will automatically be generated based on your shop's tax settings and the customer's address.
4. Mark the order as pending. This will create a new order in your shop.
5. Open the order, and add in contact information if you wish.
6. Then click More actions > Print order page. This will allow you to save the order page as a PDF which you can send to your customer. When saving the PDF file you can rename it to include “Quote” in the file name.
7. Once the order is paid by the customer, you can scroll down on the order page and select the option Collect payment > Mark as paid. This should not send any automated emails to your customer.

Let me know if these steps help you achieve your goal, and if I’ve missed or misunderstood anything please don’t hesitate to reconnect with me.

Warm regards,

[KR3]

Hi Olivia

Thanks for this work-around suggestion.

The only catch is that many of the invoices are being created for customers already in the Shopify database. My whole aim is to get products allocated to their specific customer profile to open up the locked content and send the automated emails. 

Any suggestion on what I can do for those customers?

[Olivia]

Thank you for touching base with me, @KR3.

I can definitely appreciate that. I haven't been able to think of any other workarounds in this case, however, I invite other community members to share their feedback and expertise.

I also welcome you to connect with Shopify Experts for a potential customized solution for your business needs. 

Warm regards,

[miroslavuzice87]

As I can see, this haven't been solved after two years. I have the same problem as JackTr and would much appreciate having the possibility not to notify customer by email about order being created when clicking on that customer has paid part.

[KR3]

We have created a round-about system for this as we work with a lot of
schools and need to send PDF Tax Invoices prior to payment for Purchase
Orders.

Here is our process:

*Create and save *the Customer

Now, *start *to create a Draft Order

- select the customer from existing customers, don't create within the
order
- enter order details
- in the customer info on the right:
- click 'edit' under customer information
- delete the customer email address
- uncheck the 'update customer' box
- Now generate the order with a payment date and/or method of payment
(we have never entered a payment at this point as we use this method for
purchase orders but I presume it would work)

The order confirmation will not be able to send as there is no customer
email against the order.
After you have created your PDF Invoice you might like to go back in and
update the customer email in the order, but be aware that any automated
emails generated after that time will be sent if there is an email address
against the order.

It's pretty cumbersome but it prevents school admins from receiving all
kinds of random orders from us!

I hope that helps!

KR3

[Olivia]

Thank you so much for following up with your workaround, @KR3.

I appreciate you taking the time to update us. I trust the other visitors to this thread will find this incredibly helpful and I do hope it helps them resolve the pain points mentioned above.

Warm regards,

[Saralil]

I can see that this has not been solved yet. I am having the same issue of not having the possibility not to notify customer by email about order being created without having to delete the customers email beforehand.

Does anybody have an alternative option?

[merriheart1]

KR3,

I am wondering if you might be able to explain better steps 1-3? I find it a little confusing. I really want to understand point by point where exactly you are. Thank you for obliging!

[sss1128]

After 3 years, can Shopify just add this option??

"adding just a checkmark allowing us not to notify customer when an order is created would be very practical for our business and I’m assuming many others."

[Starlight_]

This is very frustrating. I believe that fixing this issue shouldn't be difficult.

[NeilMaggy]

for influencers you should use https://apps.shopify.com/creator-gift-link to keep it standardized and not waste time on manual entry